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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27823375">Becoming present is taking the risk of absence</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/aimeewrites/pseuds/aimeewrites'>aimeewrites</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Voyager</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 18:41:24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,345</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27823375</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/aimeewrites/pseuds/aimeewrites</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Admiral Kathryn Janeway meets up with Beverley Crusher again after twelve years, under less than auspicious circumstances<br/>She has apologies to make, and faces a deadly disease...</p><p>Can be read as a stand-alone, but also as sequel to An Enterprising Officer</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Beverly Crusher/Kathryn Janeway</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>The title of this story is from A. De St Exupéry - the whole quote reads: "Of course I will hurt you. Of course you will hurt me. But those are the terms of existence. Becoming spring is taking the risk of winter. Becoming present is taking the risk of absence. It is at my risk of sorrow that I know joy"</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Admiral Kathryn Janeway was bored – one more holo- and hollow- meeting and she would erupt. Sometimes she even regretted the fraught times on Voyager…Oh, who was she kidding? She did regret Voyager and it was why she had isolated herself from her former crew. She just couldn’t bear to see them again. She did check on the younger ones from afar, but otherwise… Sometimes – often – she wondered what had made her other self sacrifice herself to make them come back. Tuvok’s illness? Seven’s death? Chakotay’s despair? Her own? Maybe it was why she was keeping away from the others now. If she was alone, she wouldn’t have anyone to miss.</p><p> Everyone had gone on with their lives and she had been stuck at Starfleet Headquarters, in a nice, bland little office. They’d said it was a promotion – it felt more like a punishment. Actually, it may well have been Starfleet’s intent – she had, after all, broken the Prime Directive a few times. She got up from her nice padded desk chair and went to look at the nice view from the window – it was all much, much too nice. Too tidy. Maybe time for another cup of coffee. She would need at least two before the next meeting. A dull ache at the back of her head made her rub her nape. It didn’t help. And suddenly she felt herself fall, grabbed the edge of the desk and everything went black.</p><p>****</p><p>“Come on, Admiral – this is a little too déjà vu for my taste!”</p><p>Janeway opened her eyes a crack, blinked, and closed them again. Too much light. She knew the voice, though, but it had been so long… Was it really? It couldn’t possibly… She drifted back to oblivion. When she opened them again, sometime later, she heard the same voice in the background, she remembered – the last time she had heard it, it was calling her “Kathryn” and murmuring sweet nothings in her ears. But that had been before… Before she had stranded her ship in the Delta Quadrant, transforming a three-week mission into a seven-year odyssey. And before she had started to encase her heart in a sheath of Kevlar. For seven years, she had remained alone – admired, respected, sometimes feared, but never loved. She had been the captain – she hadn’t been allowed love. Mickael Sullivan had been a hologram. Chakotay… A stalwart first officer, a friend – make that a former friend – who had finally married Seven. Their wedded bliss had been too hard to witness, their togetherness excluding her. She moved her fingers and tried to rise from the biobed. The voice came closer. Janeway blinked – her sight was playing up – she couldn’t see.</p><p>“Please don’t try to rise just yet, Admiral. You’re in Starfleet Medical – you had a cryptogenic stroke. I repaired most of the damage, but you still need to rest – I know it’s not your favourite thing to do, but please do as I say…”</p><p>“Or what?” quipped Janeway wanly.</p><p>“Or nothing, Admiral,” replied Beverly Crusher quietly.</p><p>Janeway gripped the doctor’s hand and said urgently: “I can’t see – I mean – I see…”</p><p>“You have a right homonymous hemoanopia, due to some damage to your left visual cortex, in your occipital lobe, Admiral – I have started to fix it, but it will take a few hours. Meanwhile, you can see only half of things, right?”</p><p>Janeway nodded – now she understood, she tried to focus on her surroundings and on the woman standing near the biobed – still in blue, still beautiful. She seemed to have added pips on her collar too – the last time she had seen Doctor Beverley Crusher, she had been a commander. That was… Twelve years previously – or about. When they had met on the Enterprise, Janeway had almost got herself killed by a volcano eruption. Now, she had done nothing to merit the iciness in the doctor’s voice – if she had had any choice in the matter, she wouldn’t have found herself lying on a biobed with a killer headache and half-blind. Or maybe it was just desserts for twelve years ago.</p><p> Had she been blind then? Could they have had a lasting relationship? Of course, not many relationships would have survived the seven-year separation, but maybe Beverley would have understood – would not have given hope… If only she, Janeway, had not decided to break things off. When they had met, they had both been recovering from a broken heart, with Beverley Crusher still mourning the death of her husband and Janeway still reeling from the shuttle crash that had killed her father and her fiancée. Maybe their common grief had drawn them together, two women with a more than ten years’ age difference, but very similar. Both driven, both scientists, and both dedicated to the Starfleet ideals of moral and preserving life, while still being bridge officers and sometimes having to take hard decisions. Whatever it was, they had found each other, and for a while, they had clung to this new-found love which had helped them heal. Being with Beverley had fulfilled a previously unknown need and had brought Janeway unadulterated pleasure.</p><p>At the time, however, they had both been very committed to their careers, both leaving on more-or-less lengthy missions, but somehow Beverley had taken it all in her stride, while Janeway had resented the separations more and more. She had even got jealous of the time Beverley devoted to Welsey too – now, after so many years, she understood why. Her lover had found time to see her child, while her own father had been too devoted to Starfleet to spend time with her. It was a twisted sense of jealous… And… She had imagined things – imagined she would never be enough for the older, self-possessed red-haired doctor – imagined that Captain Picard would steal her from her…If only they could have served on the same ship… Or maybe it would have been even more complicated – they hadn’t been the same rank for long. By the time she had embarked on Voyager, she had been fielding Beverley’s calls for almost a month – a cowardly thing to do, she knew it now. She had even pretended she was with an old childhood friend, Mark. Her fear of not being adequate, her lack of self-confidence had led her to sever the relationship without explanation. Beverley had every right to be angry at her. But if she was still angry…Was there still hope ?  </p><p>“Thank you for the explanation,” she murmured, “and… I’m sorry”,  and closed her eyes again.</p><p> </p><p>
  
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<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The ward was dark when Janeway stirred and opened her eyes again. She was feeling much better – like a small poodle was sitting on her head, not a St Bernard. Not seeing anyone, she decided she might as well go and see whether coffee was available anywhere. She started to rise, and had got as far as putting her feet on the floor when a quiet voice stopped her.</p><p>“Just where do you think you’re going, Admiral?”</p><p>Janeway groaned, and replied, trying not to whine: “I need coffee.”</p><p>“I see you haven’t changed your habits, have you? Maybe that’s why you’re here now – you’ve never been very good at taking care of yourself Ka-Admiral?” answered Beverley Crusher, who had fallen asleep in her chair, at the far end of the ward, and was none too pleased to see her patient up.</p><p>“Oh, you remember that, then,” snapped back Janeway. As she saw the wounded look on the doctor’s face, all the fight suddenly went out of her and her shoulders slumped.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “That was uncalled for. I know …Well, I know we need to talk – but…Would you please call me Kathryn again? No one… No one calls me that anymore.”</p><p>Since Janeway’s mother had died, a year after Voyager’s return to Earth, and she had distanced herself from Chakotay, no one used her first name anymore. On the rare occasions she talked to Phoebe, her sister called her Kit, like she had always done. And sometimes, she wanted to just be Kathryn – not Admiral Janeway.</p><p>Beverley’s eyes soften: “We do have to talk. Especially…” She faltered and went on: “Especially about your health.”</p><p>“My health? I feel fine! Thanks to your excellent care, in fact. All I need now is coffee.”</p><p>“I’ll give you permission to get up, get dressed, and we can have coffee together. In fact, you need to eat something – I’ll take you to breakfast.”</p><p>Janeway sensed something was bothering Beverley, but she chose to believe it was only their former relationship. The stroke had scared her more than she cared to admit, and she did not like the idea that maybe her health wasn’t so great after all. It was true that she had distanced herself from the Doctor as well, and that she hadn’t seen a physician since Voyager’s return, but she mostly felt fine. Tired, yes, not a lot of appetite, headaches, but fine. She had put all those down to her new sedentary job and not enough spare time.</p><p>*****</p><p>Conversation flew easily at first – they stuck to light subjects, such as the Cardassian wars or their experiences of the Borgs. Janeway was impressed to learn that Beverley had had to command the Enterprise when the ship was attacked by a Borg vessel while nearly the entire crew was searching for Data on a renegade Borg planet, and that she had managed to save the ship and destroy the Borg ship. Not that Beverley bragged about it – it wasn’t her style – but it came out. It was easier than to talk about how betrayed she had felt when Kathryn  had left her without a word twelve years earlier. Easier, too, than to talk about what had engraved a new frown line on her brow in just two days – how was she going to tell Kathryn that unless she could find a cure to the mysterious microorganism which was slowly attaching itself to her nervous system, she was going to die. Soon.</p><p>Finally, after a lot of coffee and a little toast, Janeway felt able to broach more sensitive topics.</p><p>“I’m sorry. I was just scared, and – and stupid, I guess. I should never have let you go. But when I understood that, I was stuck in the Delta Quadrant.”</p><p>“You’ve been back for several years,” observed Beverley, trying for a detached tone and failing.</p><p>Janeway hung her head: “Yes – I don’t want you to think I’m making excuses for myself but… I had a hard time adjusting to being back. And I think I needed to be alone. Or maybe I just thought… It’s hard to explain. During those years back there, I almost died several times – died twice, actually – and… There’s nothing like being confronted to one’s mortality to make you reflect on the error of your ways. I can’t say I know what I want now, but – I don’t think I want to be alone anymore. However, I’m not sure anyone would want me.”</p><p>Beverley’s heart constricted when she heard Kathryn talk about her death as casually as if she was mentioning her last Starfleet meeting. She should tell her. She had the right to know. In that, maybe Kathryn already knew? But surely she would have mentioned it. And then there was the rest of her little speech.</p><p>“Why wouldn’t anyone want you, Kathryn?” asked Beverley gently.</p><p>Janeway’s hands contracted. “I’m not…I’ve got…Nightmares….And panic attacks. And sometimes…Sometimes I wonder if I still know how to love. I wonder if I’ve ever known.”</p><p>Tears started to roll down her cheeks and Beverley impulsively reached out, wiping them with her thumb. “Oh, Kathryn – you’re one of the most loving people I know.”</p><p>At this, Janeway’s tears flowed even more.</p><p>“And we all have nightmares – I know I do,” added Beverley, taking Kathryn’s hand in hers. Nightmares… Nightmares – what was it with nightmares? And suddenly she remembered. She had left the Enterprise for a year and Dr Katherine Pulaski had replaced her. Dr Pulaski had managed to save William Riker from certain death after he had been infected by a microorganism, by stimulating his brain cells and making them produce endorphins. The microorganism in Kathryn’s brain seemed both similar and different. Its molecular configuration seemed – now that she remembered Pulaski’s report – the mirror image of the first one. So maybe there was a cure – maybe all she would have to do was stimulate the opposite emotion pattern. Maybe she would have to induce pain and fear not survival emotions.</p><p>Beverley took a deep breath: “Kathryn – there’s something I need to tell you.”</p><p>*****</p><p>Lying once more on the biobed, Janeway tensed, until an injection sent her into blissful sleep again. Blissful, because she didn’t want to think any longer. It hurt too much. The sleep didn’t remain blissful long, though, and soon she was trashing around and whimpering as Beverley monitored her condition, her own heart breaking at the idea that she was the one causing so much pain to someone she still loved. Sometimes the cure was a bitter pill to swallow.</p><p>Janeway dreamt – she was back on Voyager again. Facing Quinn’s death. Having to kill Tuvix to get Neelix and Tuvok back. Fighting the Hirogens…The Kazons…Seeing Kovin’s shuttle explode…The Equinox… And her own future self sacrificing herself to get them home. So much horror. So much pain.</p><p>*****</p><p>“You’re cured, Kathryn. If you take care of yourself, you will have a long life.”</p><p>Janeway smiled wanly. She was still pale and a little disoriented, but she trusted Beverley.</p><p>“Do you think you might want to share this long life with me?” she asked artlessly. Immediately after, she bit her lip, realising what she had said. She was probably still under the influence of whatever Beverley had used to put her under. Since the doctor didn’t immediately reply, Janeway winced. How stupid of her. Then Beverley approached the biobed and took her hand: “I think I just might”, she replied. “After all, someone has to take care of you.”</p><p> </p>
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